Scaling Your Behavioral Health Organization Without Losing Culture | With Andy Flanagan, CEO of Iris Telehealth

In this episode of Brainwaves by Opus, we sit down with Andy Flanagan, CEO of Iris Telehealth, a leading telepsychiatry company connecting patients to licensed mental health providers across the U.S.

Andy shares lessons from his career leading startups and global enterprises, from scaling Iris fivefold since 2020, to fostering culture and accountability, to reimagining telehealth as a seamless part of modern healthcare.

Topics include:

• Why telehealth will soon be “just healthcare,” not a separate category

• How Iris delivers care in high-acuity settings like emergency departments and Medicaid clinics

• Balancing innovation with execution to drive sustainable growth

• How empathy and culture fuel clinician engagement

• Data science and predictive models for early intervention

• The leadership lessons behind scaling profitably in a mission-driven space

Resources Mentioned:

• Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne

• Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore

• Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen

• Zero to IPO by Frederic Kerrest